One objective for Papanicolaou smear analysis is to emulate the well established human review process which follows standards recommended by The Bethesda System. A cytologist first views a slide at low magnification to identify areas of interest, then views those areas of interest at high magnification where it is possible to distinguish cells according to their structure and context.
The prior art has found it difficult to extract information from thick groups of cells, and, until the present invention, has not used information from thick groups of cells as a diagnostic tool.
It is therefore a motive of the invention to provide a method and apparatus to identify thick groups of cells on a biological specimen.